A life in the Dark

C h a p t e r T e n

F i n l e y ' s P . O . V .
________

"Don't you think she looks cute there?" I was showing my friends the video and voice recording from yesterday, pausing it when she looked away after asking to not be filmed. "You know, with her hair complimenting her eyes, and the reflection on her pretty glasses..."

"I don't know, bro," Dominic, who was on my side, shrugged, "I guess..." he trailed off after I sensed him look up, and when I turned to see what was going on, he was just staring, wide eyed. So I followed his gaze only to see Lettice walking over, one hand holding the other elbow and chewing her lip with nerves.

After rather a long time, she was finally standing in front of us, looking down at the ground. She gulped at the awkward silence. She came here, she speaks first, I thought, before giving in. "Hi," I blurted out, just saying something simple yet polite, to let her know she was welcome.

"H-hi," she stuttered clearly shy as heck, raising a hand to rub the back of her neck. "I-I was wondering if I c-can join your match?" No way! Football match? I looked around; all the guys were looking at her, questioning if she was serious. Then as I turned back to her, I noticed Jadyn and Tessa guarding the door she came through, and understood immediately.

"Those two following you, huh?" I gestured to them; she nodded. Okay, why not? "Sure, what'cha got?"

She beamed up at me. "Pass," she called over to Zach, who had the ball, who kicked it cruelly hard to her, and-honestly-we were all expecting her to miss it, but she...controlled it... And flicked it up all in one movement. Considering this is the first time I've seen her do anything with a football, I was pretty impressed-she did it so effortlessly then continued to impress as she performed several keepy-upies with the side of her feet, from one foot to the other. I foresaw that this was going to be incredible, so I did what anyone would do and started recording. The other guys were silent too, besides amazed gasps so I was glad it wasn't just me.

She tapped the ball with such precision that she hardly had to move to hit it the next time, until eventually she kicked it up higher, over her head, where she caught it with the back of her leg, bending her knee to hold it. Then she dropped it, and before the murmurs got too loud, went straight into a rainbow flick over her head-getting tonnes of shocked comments. No matter how much we practice, none of us can ever do it successfully, apart from the tiny percentage of our attempts where no one is there to witness it. Lettice-this bookworm of a girl that none of us really ever noticed-had just done it, perfectly. Beautifully at that. Elegantly.

The ball soared over her head, where she raised her leg to meet it perpendicular to her body, and kicked it back, where she proceeded to keep it up from one heel to the other, which is incredibly hard considering you can hardly see the ball. It continued to bounce to no higher than her head, when suddenly she nudged it higher, bent over a bit and caught it in her neck easily. Fuck, she made it look so easy. Us guys were being put to shame by Lettice! Right when I thought it couldn't get any worse for us guys, she rolled it down her back and chipped it up with her heel; there were oohs and ahs as she went on to catch it by using her foot to keep it there, resting on her leg, then even more as she proceeded to perform a series of perfect 'round-the-world's one after the other. Fucking hell this is incredible! I couldn't do this in my dreams; if it was all an act I still couldn't.

Then she tapped it up and did multiple headers, getting great height then took it down to her knees, swiftly keeping it from the floor. Suddenly she dropped it and booted it straight up, it hitting the netting roof and falling ridiculously fast, but she managed to header it straight up from that, her hair shining with the sun. Finally, she twisted round backwards, her heel coming into contact with the football as it fell, whereupon it was smashed towards the goal, but way off course. The guys all raised an eyebrow, after all, missing the goal after that skilled performance was rather anti-climatic.

But it curved.

No way, I thought, watching intently as the ball slowly changed direction and landed safely in the goal. There was silence as we all took this in. I looked to see Jadyn and Tessa's faces and they were so priceless, I couldn't resist pointing my phone over at them to get them on camera. Then, just as suddenly as it disappeared earlier, the shy, low-self-esteem version of Lettice reappeared, staring shakily at my phone that was in my hand. I quickly stopped the recording and turned my phone off, hiding it in my pocket.

"Lettice..." I began, lost for words. "Th...that was amazing!" She gave me a small smile, hiding her expression behind her glasses. "I mean it!" I added hastily.

"Tha-thank you," she practically whispered. I smiled back, as the other guys surrounded her, drowning her in questions like 'how'd you do that?' And 'how long have you been able to do that?'

"Do you go to a football club?" Dominic asked.

She nodded, nervously. "I started football as a toddler," she shrugged. "It kinda became almost like a therapy to me. My...my father left when I was born, a-and booting the ball as hard as I could across the field relieved some of my anger."

"I-I'm sorry," he said, taken aback by the new information she'd just told us.

"Don't be, it wasn't your fault," she smiled sadly.

I let out a breath I didn't realise I was holding. Lettice didn't deserve all the things we put her through. She deserved a nice form and tonnes of friends. Not bullies at every turn.

It was here I vowed to make up for everything I'd done, and stop everyone else from being horrible to her...

~~~~~~

So... Someone finally likes Lettice! Yay! From here on the parts are more spaced out in their universe, but they're going to get much more interesting!

Don't be a silent reader! Please vote, comment and follow! <3